Summary
- Mastering Sekiro's difficulty requires tuning into the unique rhythm of every boss, including the parry-based combat itself.
- Lady Butterfly stands out as a boss in that players can choose to fight her or put it off, but she becomes necessary for progression.
- Facing Lady Butterfly early can be seen as a learning experience to understand the game's rhythm, which can help throughout the game.
Mastering the difficulty of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice comes primarily from tuning to the individual rhythm of every boss, and the overall basic rhythm of the parry-based combat itself. This is shown off as early as the initial intended loss against Genichiro at the start of the game, but reaches a heavy crescendo by the time players challenge Lady Butterfly in Hirata Estate.
What makes Lady Butterfly stand out against other bosses in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is the way that players might be compelled to fight her, but not forced to get through her for progression. This then lets players put off the task of adjusting to the game's difficulty until it becomes absolutely necessary while rewarding those who become familiar with Sekiro's pacing right from the start.
An Early Bar of Sekiro's Rhythm
The gameplay of Sekiro has been called many things among the Soulsborne community, from the most difficult in the series to a limited constraint of build variety that either lends to true mastery or removes the opportunity for differing play styles. However, one description that has proliferated among fans over the years is that Sekiro is the FromSoftware version of a rhythm game, with the sound of clashing swords replacing the accompanying music. As a result, understanding the underlying rhythm of Sekiro's toughest bosses is as satisfying as finding the flow state that comes from nailing Through the Fire and Flames in Clone Hero.
This rhythm is also one key to why many fans of FromSoftware's other games might bounce off of Sekiro at first, as getting tuned to the game's tempo is a new concept for the Soulsborne series. Fortunately for new players, there is a helpful tutorial that applies little pressure on actual progress to help get acclimated for how to properly play Sekiro in the form of Lady Butterfly. Located in the Hirata Estate flashback level, Lady Butterfly appears as an initially optional boss who earns her place as one of FromSoftware's hardest bosses by being significantly more aggressive than previous encounters.
While boss aggression adds difficulty to bosses in Sekiro as much as any other Soulsborne title, it also gives ample opportunity for players to learn the rhythm of attacks in order to turn potential damage taken into returned posture damage. This means that when Lady Butterfly launches out aggressive strings of attacks, players suddenly have the opportunity to turn her attacks into a path toward victory. Considering that up until the point when players can first arrive at Hirata Estate there are no other bosses that attack this aggressively or quickly, Lady Butterfly becomes the highest bar for the most difficult moments in Sekiro that are still to come.
Facing Lady Butterfly Early, or Saving for Later
It should be noted that while Lady Butterfly isn't an immediate obstacle to progression, she does become a necessary part of the mid to late game, and is actually balanced around the point that she blockades. This offers players two options when they first find Lady Butterfly, to either keep fighting what would be the hardest possible boss to fight at this point or to save her for later after gathering some extra prayer beads, gourd seeds, and memories. However, in the case of Sekiro's more limited build variety than other Soulsborne combat systems, this might better be seen as a learning experience that can be challenged with limited resources rather than something to save for later.
So, while it is certainly an option to put this difficult fight on the back burner at this point in the game, it could be worth taking the time to get in tune with Lady Butterfly's fast-paced combat rhythm. This is a difficulty spike that players will have to overcome at a certain point when traveling across Sekiro's beautiful and brutally punishing world, and could best be tackled earlier rather than later. Having a handle on the rhythm of Sekiro's most difficult encounters early could then help players remain in tune all the way to the credits.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.